


Then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid (like ‘I love you.’)

by mjonesing (klassmartin)



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Exes to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Gratuitous Levels of Fluff, Peter Parker has no chill, Seriously though someone send this boy some help, neither does the author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27593311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klassmartin/pseuds/mjonesing
Summary: In the past, before their end, he’d been able to say anything to her. Could talk to her for hours about nothing at all. He hadn’t known they would have such a thing as last words ; had thought that their hello would never have a goodbye. He thinks of the hundred different ways he told her he loved her, and how he never got to find the hundred and first. That maybe if he’d said it more - if he repeated it over and over until the words lost all meaning and he had to find new ones to express the sentiment - they could have somehow survived the storm that tore them apart.Now, it’s the eleventh Tuesday he’s seen her, and he has so much he wants to say but none of it is right. It’s a long string of words meant for the middle of a story he might never get to write again, unless he can find the ones meant for a good beginning.—————Or: Michelle Jones walks into Peter’s favourite coffee shop. He deals with it about as well as you’d expect.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 31
Kudos: 57





	Then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid (like ‘I love you.’)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spideysmjs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideysmjs/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAREST MARIEEEEE
> 
> Everyone was writing you angst and smut so I decided to do FLUFF. Hope you enjoy this little piece of adorable ness that makes me want to vomit <3

The bell above the door announces her arrival, jingling with the promise of a new beginning.

Peter shouldn’t even be paying attention, tucked into the cosiest alcove of _Cuppa Joe’s_ with his trusty tablet and a large dose of caffeine. The softer lighting is optimal for him to work in peace, settling into the process of editing his latest batch of photographs, shoes kicked off so he can curl his legs up on the cracked leather of the creaking armchair. He’s spent many a quiet afternoon flying through his workload here, unaware of anything else but his stylus moving across the screen with practised ease.

It is, quite possibly, his favourite place in the world.

And then Michelle Jones walks in.

It’s like the sun comes out from behind its rainy shield, or perhaps the overhead lights start to glow a little differently. All he knows is that whatever pretty landscape he’d been captured by a moment before suddenly pales to the saturation of how her pastel dress makes her eyes shine, how her skin is golden in the earliest hints of sunset.

There’s been ten years between the last time he saw her and now, yet it feels like barely a moment.

Michelle walks up to the counter in slow motion, a soft smile on her face as she shakes her head and looks up from her phone to the barista. When she speaks, he hears her - there could be a thousand more people screaming inside the four cracked walls of this little cafe and he’d still hear her like she was the only person left on the planet - and he knows before she finishes the first word what she’s going to say.

 _Caramel macchiato with coconut milk, please_.

Ten years. A moment. Either way, the thought of still knowing her, even just a little, makes his fingers tingle with warmth.

She turns, glancing around her like she can feel his gaze, and he ducks behind his tablet like a pre-teen.

Just because he’s thirty now does _not_ mean he’s an adult.

When he finally finds the nerve to check, Michelle is collecting her drink and tucking a crumpled note into the tip jar, and then she’s walking away, sneakers squeaking against the linoleum.

He’s disappointed, maybe even dejected. His second chance exits the coffee shop with a swish of her hair and the sad ring of a bell.

* * *

One month later, and he’s almost forgotten about the moment of light that cut through the monotony of his work day. 

Except he walks into the coffee shop and she’s there, tucked into his usual seat with a heavily bound book, reading glasses perched on her nose but still squinting at the page.

Michelle shifts, tucking her knees up to her chin, and before her eyes can finish their journey to the door, Peter is gone.

* * *

It’s not like he doesn’t _want_ to speak to her.

He just doesn’t know how.

In the past, before their end, he’d been able to say anything to her. Could talk to her for hours about nothing at all. He hadn’t known they would have such a thing as _last words_ ; had thought that their hello would never have a goodbye. He thinks of the hundred different ways he told her he loved her, and how he never got to find the hundred and first. That maybe if he’d said it more - if he repeated it over and over until the words lost all meaning and he had to find new ones to express the sentiment - they could have somehow survived the storm that tore them apart.

Now, it’s the eleventh Tuesday he’s seen her, and he has so much he wants to say but none of it is _right_. It’s a long string of words meant for the middle of a story he might never get to write again, unless he can find the ones meant for a good beginning.

So he waits. He hides. He watches.

But that eleventh Tuesday is different.

He feels it before she’s even opened the door, eyes already fixed on where she’s about to enter, a hood and his tablet disguising as much of him as he can from her sharp gaze.

It is the first time in eleven Tuesdays, eight Wednesdays and five Friday mornings that she does not smile.

And his heart breaks.

She rushes to the counter with her hand in her hair and a puffiness to her eyes, fumbles over an order of espresso and their biggest slice of banana bread - one of her favourite comfort foods, the exact one that sat untouched between them the last day they spoke. Her blouse is buttoned incorrectly and there’s a smudge of charcoal disappearing into the cuff of her jacket, another staining the shell of her ear.

He knows what charcoal means.

The tablet falls into his lap without a second thought, and right as he’s about to spring from his seat, he sees her slump against the counter as she waits, wiping her nose with the back of her hand and yanking a ringing phone from the depths of her pockets.

Michelle scowls at the screen but answers, her words clipped, her tone restrained.

She paces into the farthest corner and Peter diverts from approaching her, knowing the last thing she probably needs right now is to know her ex boyfriend has just seen her at her worst.

He heads instead to the counter, where he orders a small coffee to go and quietly requests to put her order onto his bill.

By the time her tense phone call is done, Peter has collected his belongings and is across the street. Michelle reaches into her pocket to pay but the barista shakes her head and points to his favourite table. Her brow furrows, eyes glancing around the nearly empty cafe, but even though her search comes up empty, there’s a hint of something happier to her expression. 

Peter lets out a breath and sips his coffee, turning in the direction of home, leaving Michelle to find some comfort in the cracked leather of a comfy chair and her latest book.

* * *

It becomes a game, after that day; one he knows she can’t stand not having the upper hand in.

The next time he goes to _Cuppa Joe’s_ after her bad day, the barista hands him his regular order with the assurance that it’s been paid for already, giddy as she tells him that his gift had been appreciated and reciprocated. Peter grins and tucks a hefty tip into the jar on the counter. The coffee has never tasted so delicious, and he eagerly requests for her next order to be added onto his.

It continues this way for three weeks, trading off on purchasing each other’s orders; Peter for Michelle, and Michelle for a stranger.

He has to resist lingering in the shop too long, the temptation to see her reaction each time being overshadowed by the thrill of being anonymous, of finding a way to engage with her that doesn’t require him finding the perfect words.

He tries to avoid sticking to a routine, coming in at random and unpredictable times of the day in case her curiosity undoubtedly leads her to him before he’s ready. Still, on the last day of that third week, he carries his coffee and muffin to his regular table, where he finds a napkin neatly laid on the armchair. When he turns it over there’s a sketch, embossed into the disposable fabric with an ink pen and sheer determination, of a steaming mug of a coffee clasped in a hand that looks strikingly familiar.

Peter drops the napkin like it’s suddenly on fire and looks wildly around him, but she’s nowhere to be seen.

It’s only when he finally sits down that he sees it, scrawled in her handwriting in the top right corner.

_Thanks, stalker._

Three days later, he finds a newspaper left on the table, open on the puzzles page with the crossword completed in the same blue pen as the sketch, the wordsearch sitting almost empty save for two individual letters circled in red ink.

_Hi._

Peter laughs and picks up the pen that sits beside the paper, building upon her work until it forms the structure of serotonin.

That evening he finds it again, his crude drawing morphed into a silly sketch of a cartoon alien. 

Peter picks up the pen and taps it against his chin, thinking for a moment before finding his inspiration, settling into their next game as warmth fills his chest once more.

* * *

Michelle and her sketches become a constant in his life.

He’s not sure how it’s possible, to still be hopelessly in love with her after all this time; a decade of living a life without her, a decade to experience all its trials and tribulations. 

But he feels it, as sure as when he was sixteen; seventeen; all the way until their end at twenty years old. Peter adores Michelle as fiercely as he had as a young man, the feeling consuming every fibre of being, new again yet familiar, like it never really left; just lay dormant as he went about life. 

He’ll tell her, of course he will. 

He just has to find the courage to start the conversation’ first.

* * *

There are several close calls, of course. You can’t spend half of your life consumed by the little coffee shop on the corner and what blooms inside of it without almost spoiling the fun of it all.

And he knows it’s wrong, to have all the pieces of the puzzle they’re building while she’s left without the most important ones. 

But this thing they’re building is delicate, and the last thing he wants is for their past to crush it before it can truly begin.

So Peter plays the game, the comfort of their new normal keeping him from risking it all by daring to approach her. 

It’s working perfectly, right up until he finds her latest note tucked under his fresh coffee by the barista who works as their middle man. She’s almost bubbling over with excitement, so much so that Peter opens it there and then with a peculiar sense of dread shooting like ice down his spine.

_We should drink these coffees together some time._

* * *

Peter Parker has been called many, many things in his life - but never a coward.

Not until that moment.

* * *

It takes him a week to find any semblance of courage to return to his once favourite place.

That courage leaves him immediately the second he steps through the door and sees her sitting in his chair, dark eyes already fixed on him as she sips her caramel macchiato with coconut milk.

It’s the first time he’s felt her gaze on him since he was in college, and he almost crumbles to the floor as it sends shockwaves through his system. 

By some kind of miracle, Peter remains upright and manages to take five clunky steps towards her, drawn in by her magnetism as she calmly sets down her mug beside his favourite order and rises from her seat.

“I knew it was you,” she says with a coy humour to her tone. “Only Peter Parker would be nerdy enough to communicate that he liked my drawing with the make-up of happy hormones.”

The blush consumes his entire face before he can try to stop it, and she tilts her head thoughtfully to the side.

“So, you’re my friendly neighbourhood stalker, then.”

His eyes bulge and he rushes to find the words that still escape him, when -

“You’ve been flirting with me for three months without saying a word. Maybe, now I’ve made the first move, you have something you want to say?“

It’s full of confidence and barely contained judgement, but his eyes drift down to the fidgeting fingers of a teenaged Michelle, tangling together in a way he once knew meant she was preparing to do something big.

Like at sixteen, when she wanted to hold his hand.

At seventeen, exploring his bare skin for the first time.

At eighteen, preparing to embark on different journeys but too stubborn to let go.

And at twenty, the last time they spoke, trying to find a way to bridge the space that’d grown between them anyway.

Ten years later, and he still makes her nervous.

“Yeah.” He smiles. “I do.”

He curls his hand around hers and suddenly he sees it all - walking through the park together after their second go at a first date; hands clasped across a fancy restaurant table for their anniversary; sliding a ring onto her finger in front of their family and friends; holding their child for the very first time; palms pressed together as they spend a lazy Sunday morning in bed, twenty or thirty or forty years from now.

There’s a million possibilities but what really matters is that she’s _there_ , because most of all, he sees two lives coming together, choosing to forge their own path after years spent wandering alone.

Michelle’s eyes soften like she sees it too, and when she returns his sure grasp, he finds the words he’s been searching for.

“I just wanted to say, ‘hello.’”

**Author's Note:**

> @mjonesing on Tumblr as always


End file.
